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I was looking over the Anonymous entry, and there was a whole lot on Scientology and how Anon is against it, but why? What is Scientology and why does Anonymous dislike it?

Scientology is the belief that Jesus is an alien. If we give enough money to our alien savior, he will come down from the stars and give us all super powers so we can join him in the stars. It will be like Star Wars with more explosions.

I'm kidding, I'm actually curious as to what scientology is too. Can someone shed some light?

Scientology is the study of science. Duh.

Actually Bob hit it right on the head. That is almost legitimately what they believe. They believe some aliens came down to earth and had a nuclear war. All the aliens on earth died. Xenu captured all the dead alien spirits, and we have the spirits of dead aliens inside of us. If we pay them enough money, they will reveal the meaning of life to us or something. That's what I remember reading about it. It's the worst "religion" I've ever heard of.

Skip to 3:05 and/or skip to 3:40
Actually, just watch the whole thing

Scientology was invented by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950's. It's a theory that really is as crazy as you have been led to believe. It involves vicious alien overlords, volcanos and your credit card number as Madcat pointed out

Hubbard was a Schizophrenic lunatic and also a con man who cheated people out of their money with his bogus self-help technique known as Dianetics

Somehow his crazed ramblings about aliens being responsible for the existence of our souls got out into the public and managed to influence some people. I'm not sure if people picked up Scientology as the worlds biggest joke or a huge money making sham (Scientology sure seems to ask for money a lot compared to other religions)

There's something very disturbing about Scientology compared to other religions. Sometimes I feel like the whole thing was purposely made up just as some kind of experiment to see how religions start. I keep feeling like there's an ulterior motive behind it. Like it's trying to say "Lets make shit up and see if it becomes a religion…for science"

South Park didn't have to parody scientologists. They just presented it as it is and that was the joke

South Park was right

See wikipedia for more details.

So, these guys believe in the ancient astronaut theory?

Or am I reading it wrong?

There's more to it than that Thomas.

It's not just an ancient astronaut theory is an Almighty supergalactic space Emperor Xenu who commits genocide against other aliens by throwing them into Earths volcano's so they became ghosts which possessed ancient man theory.

I am not joking, see the video's I linked.

So a very freaky variation, in other words.

Yeah, I kinda thought so.

What is Scientology?
A miserable pile of Tom Cruise.

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

Scientology, Movementarianism, Rajneeshis, meh…it's all the same to me.

Scientology.

Making Science look bad since who knows?

I honestly believe Scientology is a legitimate group.

They believe that we are all possessed by the souls of aliens. An electric shock that isn't powerful enough to get through the skin can alleviate this condition for some reason.
L Ron Hubbard was, quite frankly, insane. His teachings include a bizarre hatred of psychologists, paying money to hear secrets he probably made up, and suing people trying to leave his church.
The church of Scientology operates as a tax-exempt business, suing all who oppose it on various charges to keep them quiet while it rakes in the cash.
I just don't understand why people would join a religion invented by a science-fiction writer.

Scientology is a religion that involves Tom Cruise wearing an aluminum hat.

I personally believe aliens exist, but Scientology is too far-fetched for my tastes.

However, unless you are a Nazi, I have full respect for whatever religion/culture/cult you chose*.

(*Exceptions apply)

Want to know what scientology is all about? Let Parker, Stone and Associates explain.

Yeah, sorry about the blurb at the end, it's in the code.

I think it has to pirates and pasta, or is that something else?
Close enough.

Just go watch the southpark episdoe about it!

While a lot of people here have given some good info, I'd like to suggest that there are simpler ways to get this info. A Google search on "Scientology" yields the following three links at the top of the results:

The Church of Scientology's own web site

The Wikipedia article on Scientology

Operation Clambake, one of the most active anti-CoS sites on the web.

Here's something interesting for you all…

A quote from L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology:

"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."

What does this tell you?

I don't see how that makes it any less a religion or legitimate group. Every religion has something that another man will look at and say "Was he stupid, or just crazy?".

Scientologists go in willingly paying their money to work with what they believe.

Be that Xenu or the Dollar, I care not. Live and let live.

I can't think of anywhere on the internet that would be better for inquiring about this than KYM.

@Kasrkai

To answer your question, this is what makes Scientology less of a religion:

It's a money making scam, not a serious belief that defines anything spiritual or moral

I'm pretty sure Hubbard did not believe in Xenu. It was his own science fiction character that he invented on the spot and he knew it. It takes an impressive amount of dementia to think something you wrote in a fictional story really did exist. But I don't think Hubbard was that crazy, I think he knew exactly what he was doing. He did it because he knew he could make some money out of it by playing it off as a religious icon

Scientology still exists for that same motive. The leaders that run the thing are in it for the money, they don't believe in their own religion.

But the followers are serious. They actually do believe. For the followers it is like you say: live and let live. If they want to be scammed, so be it.

It's hard to live and let live when they aggressively attempt to silence any who criticize them. Read the article on Wikipedia about their relationship with the internet. I frankly don't care about their beliefs: they're entitled to them. But we are entitled to free speech, and anyone who attempts to destroy that has made themselves my ideological enemy.

@Elite Four Owens:
While that quote has been credited to Hubbard, I've also heard it credited to friends of Hubbard, and it's never been very clear whether he actually said it. I think it's one of these things that has been widely believed because it's so classically ironic.

@Kasrkai:
You're largely right about Scientology's beliefs not being substantially different from a number of religions' beliefs, but there are a handful of notable differences in the way their religion deals with a number of issues, including the institutionalized paranoia that MDFification points out.

One of the other important differences has to do with historicity. Many of the more mainstream religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i have at least some historic evidence that their core beliefs are based on something historical. Scientology is pretty much all built on the say-so of Hubbard himself. I'll admit that this point can be somewhat controversial, as one could say Islam was built on the word of Muhammad alone, but…take it as you will.

What is Scientology?

Isn't Xenu a pokémon.

Yes; generation OT III.

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